


Time For Some Thrilling Heroics

by littlebirdtoldme



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005), Firefly, Serenity (2005)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-09
Updated: 2015-08-09
Packaged: 2018-04-13 20:37:10
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,846
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4536489
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/littlebirdtoldme/pseuds/littlebirdtoldme
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Rose and the Doctor see something's amiss and, as always, swoop in to save the day - or at least, try to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Time For Some Thrilling Heroics

**Author's Note:**

  * For [JustAnotherGhostwriter](https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherGhostwriter/gifts).



“...Doctor?”

Rose ran forward into the console room, arms swinging casually. She frowned slightly as she scanned the area for her Time Lord – he would be here, she was sure – until she spotted the trademark converse shoes and brown suit trousers sticking out from under the console. She smiled. Rolled her eyes. Of course.

He didn’t seem to have heard her, engrossed as he was in his work. She quietly moved forwards and knelt by his feet, seeing his hands fiddle with wires. She grabbed him by the ankles and swiftly dragged him out from under the console.

“Woah, woah, woah! Rose Tyler!” He scowled grumpily up at her, hands still full of wire. “We talked about this. She needs me, a little tweaking, just...” he glanced back at the wire, then up to the blonde straddling his waist, smiling playfully down at him. He sighed. His girls. Between Rose and the TARDIS, he never got time on his own. Which was, of course, perfect for him.

“Now that you’ve got my attention,” he grinned, “care to explain why I was so rudely interrupted?”

The smile on Rose’s face faltered a little, and the Doctor’s expression twisted into a concerned frown. “Rose, what’s wrong?”

She glanced up to the screen. “She was showing me this. Look. Security feed from that planet we passed earlier. I don’t know what we should...” she trailed off. The Doctor’s worry deepened. It was rare for Rose to get this uncertain about something. He hopped to his feet and watched the screen, wrapping a comforting arm around her waist.

The image was in a hospital, it looked like. Two men were talking, and it was clear that the power lay with the younger of the two. He stood still and certain, while the other man looked almost flustered by the younger’s presence. That wasn’t what had concerned Rose, though, the Doctor saw that instantly. Behind these two men was a young woman, strapped to an almost upright... Well, it looked like an operating table. She was shifting slightly in her restraints, but not in a way that indicated an escape attempt – far more subdued than that. The doctor frowned at the screen and whipped his glasses out of his pocket, mouth slightly open as they watched the events on screen. He poked a button on the console, and sound burst into the room.

The younger man was speaking. “What use do we have for a psychic if she’s insane?” He stepped towards the girl, a somewhat pensive expression on his face. Rose glanced up at the Doctor in surprise, but he was too focussed on the screen to meet her eyes.

“I don't have to tell you the security potential of someone who can read minds. And she has lucid periods – we hope to improve upon the... I'm sorry, Sir, I have to ask if there's some reason for this inspection?” The older man was definitely intimidated by the younger, who then turned on his heel to face him.

“Am I making you nervous?”

The Doctor stopped listening. This wasn’t important.

“We need to get there,” he said to Rose, pointing at the screen with a fervent look in his eye. She nodded, no question.

“Keep watching it,” he said, as he started to race around the console. “Tell me anything I should know.”

Rose simply nodded once more. She knew the drill by now.

The younger man was standing near the girl again, and the look on his face startled Rose. It was not the one of cold professionalism he had before. It was... Softer? More... Loving? She leaned closer.

“She always did love to dance.”

Rose cried out and leapt back as the situation on screen descended into chaos. Brief, over-in-a-flash chaos, but chaos all the same. The young man had dropped to the floor and released a horizontal circle of blue light which was sent radiating around the room. The Doctor came running back, glasses shoved hastily onto his face as he studied the screen closely. His eyes were bunched and his mouth half open, mouthing words Rose couldn’t make out.

“Doctor, what do we do? He’s...” Rose broke off – yet another development had caught her eye. Or rather, her ear. The young man was speaking to the restrained girl.

“River,” the man said, his voice filled with that loving quality Rose had heard before. He was knelt beside her, a hand to her face. “Wake up. Please, it’s Simon.” Simon’s voice almost broke. Almost. “River. It’s your brother. Wake up...”

Rose was reeling. “We have to help them.”

The Doctor was way ahead of her. Punching coordinates into the console, he almost lost his footing as he raced around to the other side. He tugged on a handle hanging down from above him: once, twice, three times – then a shrug and a fourth tug for good measure. He spun round, eyes searching rapidly. “Ahha!” he cried, making Rose jump.

The TARDIS followed Rose’s lead, bursting into life with a sudden groan and show of life. Rose couldn’t help but smile: the TARDIS was more than just a home, a vehicle, to both her and the Doctor. She was a friend. Rose understood this almost better than the Doctor – after all, she had once become one with the extraordinary ship. She laid a hand on the console, steadying herself slightly as the trio went shooting back through space.

The TARDIS slowed with a mechanical sigh to a halt, and the Doctor was already racing towards the doors. Rose was hot on his heels, but nearly barrelled into the Doctor as he wheeled round and stumbled back to the console.

“SONIC!” He yelled, holding the almost-forgotten tech aloft. Rose shook her head with a smile and nodded towards the door. The Time Lord ran back to her, grabbing her hand as he whipped past her and –

“Woah!”

Maybe running out the door wasn’t always such a good plan. A seemingly endless hole stretched out beneath them.

“Ventilation shaft?” Rose asked.

“Looks like.”

“Doctor... Look...” She nudged him and pointed forwards. A long metal rope stretched right down past them. They followed the line upwards, and quickly saw a ship hovering at the opening of the ventilation shaft. The Doctor looked back down and gave an excited yell: a platform with two people was quickly approaching, and even from this distance Rose could see that it was the two called Simon and River from the feed.

“That ship is here to rescue them!” The Doctor said excitedly. “They beat us to it, they must have –”

His excitement was cut short with a snap of a rope and a scream.

Below them, the pair were tumbling into the darkness. The Doctor stood frozen for a moment before flying back to the console, moving faster and more furiously than Rose had ever seen.

“I need you at the door, Rose!” He yelled, almost slipping as he raced back and forth around the controls. “We’re gonna try to catch them through the door, you might need to grab them. Got it?”

Rose nodded, steeling herself. She glanced to the door. The chances of them making this...

She gripped the railing, steadying herself as the TARDIS sped up, faster, faster, faster, until they overtook the falling siblings. They kept moving, and came to a jolting halt beneath the pair. The Doctor spun a dial, the TARDIS lurched onto her side, open door aimed at Simon and River. Rose faltered for a moment: although the ship’s gravity kept her rooted to the floor, it was a strange feeling to be tipped sideways and stay standing. Leaning towards the door, Rose stretched out a hand.

-

Simon knew they would die. They couldn’t survive this fall. They were plummeting too fast to grab anything. All his time, planning, everything – and they were going to die. He looked at River, and her gaze was already on him. He locked eyes with his sister and his heart ached. Maybe he couldn’t save her life, but at least he could save her from the Alliance. That was better than nothing. At least he was dying with her this way – otherwise nothing would be all he had left.

He wasn’t scared. His death would be quick, as would River’s. An impact like the one they would have... The drop felt endless to him, but he knew that soon enough he and the sister he worked so hard to save would discover just how deep it truly was.

He still held River’s hand. He couldn’t let go. Couldn’t lose her again, not this close to the end. They were going together. The young girl squeezed his hand, her expression one of serenity. She didn’t fear this, either. Chances are she knew from the start how this would end.

River looked down, and Simon couldn’t help but follow her eyes. What he saw made him catch his breath – a hard enough thing to do with the wind whipping around his face.

A blue box hovered below them, steadying. A door was open, the gap facing them. A shape was in the doorway. A woman. Her hand was outstretched, and Simon instinctively reached for it. Whoever she was, she wasn’t Alliance... Simon’s heart was in his throat as he realised that maybe, just maybe, he could keep his Mei-Mei alive and safe for just a little longer.

-

“Go left!” Rose yelled as the pair fell towards them. The TARDIS lurched to the side. “No, not that much, go back! There, yes! That’s it!” She jumped to the side, her assistance not needed, as the two strangers tumbled through the door onto the floor of the TARDIS. Rose pushed the door shut as the Doctor slammed a button on the console, and the ship instantly began to dematerialise. He moved slowly round towards the two who were now dusting themselves off – or at least, Simon was ensuring the well-being of them both. River was staring around the room with a look of childish intrigue.

“Simon and River Tam,” the Doctor said, his voice gentle and friendly. Simon looked up. His face betrayed his suspicion, despite the Doctor’s careful demeanour.

“Who wants to know?”

“It wasn’t a question.” The Time Lord stepped down to the level the siblings had fallen onto, still in a somewhat disorganised heap on the floor. He offered a hand and, after a moment of consideration, Simon took it and stood.

“Simon and River Tam,” the Doctor repeated. “Children of a well off family, you’d be friendly with the Alliance if it weren’t for your recent antics. Gifted, incredibly. The both of you. But...” he knelt beside River, whose head snapped up to meet his steady gaze. “Her especially so.”

Simon stood over the Doctor, his posture one of nervous confrontation. “I can’t say that you’re wrong. I also must thank you for saving our lives. Now, if you don’t mind me asking, who the hell are you, and why are you here?”

Rose raised her eyebrows and glanced between the young man and the ancient Time Lord. The latter simply smiled.

“We picked up the security feed from the hospital. We saw everything. We got here just as things went wrong with your plan A, and decided to intervene. It’s Rose here you ought to thank – she spotted you in the first place.” The Doctor gestured towards the blonde, who raised her head slightly: Simon nodded his head in curt thanks.

“As for who I am,” the Doctor smiled, “I’m the Doctor.”

“Doctor who?”

“Just the Doctor!”

“Doctor of what, exactly?”

“Oh... This and that. You know how it is.”

“Yes, I do know. And it’s not like that. As far as I’m concerned, ‘doctor’ is a title that one earns, not chooses.”

“I’ve saved more lives than I’ve lost. Does that count?”

Simon frowned. “Who are you? Not your name, whatever that may be. What are you, why do you...?”

“I’m a Time Lord,” the Doctor said simply. “And this is my TARDIS – Time And Relative Dimension In Space. She’s bigger on the inside, but I’ll let you off not noticing that due to the whole ‘believing you were plummeting to your death’ thing,” he added with just a little too much cheerfulness.

"Right," Simon said, with more than a little distrust in his voice. "Well, thank you for the rescue, but I need to get River to safety. If I give you planetary coordinates, could you take us somewhere? I can pay our way if -"

“She’s alive.”

The soft voice made all heads turn. River was staring at the floor, one palm flat on the metal. “She’s alive, I can feel her breathing.” The young girl looked up at the Doctor and broke into a small but radiant smile. “I think she likes me.”

Both doctors, of both name and trade, knelt beside River. Her brother brushed her hair from her face. “River, honey, it’s a ship, it can’t –”

“No no no, she’s right,” the Doctor hushed him, looking at River with a strange mix of joy, interest and awe. “The TARDIS is a living, breathing machine. She knows, she thinks, she is.” He lifted River’s chin, and to Simon’s surprise she didn’t jerk away from his touch. “She does like you. Very much.” It was hard to keep the excitement from his voice. A few heavy, silent moments passed, before the Doctor placed a hand either side of River’s head and pressed his forehead to hers.

River gasped.

“What’s he doing?!” Simon said angrily, and Rose ran forward to hold him back.

“Simon, stop, it’s okay, trust him – he knows what he’s doing.”

“Which is what?!”

Rose looked to the pair. “Teaching her.”

Simon broke away from Rose, and sat heavily on the steps. “I’ve risked everything to get her out of that place, to keep her alive and get her safe.”

“The Doctor doesn’t do this unless he knows it’s safe to. Believe me, I know, she’s okay.”

“How well do you really know this man? There’s something starkly different about you two.”

“I know him almost better than he knows himself,” she said quietly.

“‘Almost’”, Simon repeated, a hint of bitterness in his tone. “It’s always ‘almost’. We ‘almost’ didn’t send her to that school. I ‘almost’ persuaded my parents to fetch her home. We ‘almost’ made it out of that godforsaken place.”

“You’re still making it out alive, Simon, I promise you that. Alright?” Rose placed a comforting hand on his shoulder, but quickly withdrew it as Simon looked coldly round at her. "Yes, well you can promise what you like, Rose - it is Rose, isn't it? - but in the end promises are no more than words spoken under the influence of duty."

He stood, leaving Rose with his words echoing round her mind. She thought of Micky, her promises to love him. She thought of her mother, and her promises to stay safe.

The young doctor had a point.

-

Simon knelt by River and placed a hand on the back of her head. A few silent beats later his little sister and the self-proclaimed Time Lord broke apart, and River looked at her brother with a childish awe in her eyes.

"Simon..."

"Mei-Mei, I'm right here, what did he do?"

"He showed me." Her face lit up.

"Showed you... What?"

"Everything," she whispered.

Simon looked to the Doctor in confusion. The older man shrugged. "It's as she said, Simon. I see a lot of things. So does River... But you knew that already."

"Where's the wolf?" River said softly. "I saw a wolf, where is she?"

Rose's heart skipped a beat.

"There are no wolves here River, what do -?"

"I'm here." Rose sat beside the girl. "Bad Wolf. That's what you saw, right? I am the Bad Wolf." She shuddered. It had been a long time since she had spoken those words.

Simon looked confused. "'Bad Wolf', what the hell is that -" A stern look from the Doctor cut him off. Suddenly, Simon had no more questions.

River looked up at Rose, her eyes curious, as if she was seeing the blonde for the first time again.

"You are. You thought you were. But you still are. You always will be the Bad Wolf." She spoke gently but with certainty. Rose did not doubt her words.

"You are the Bad Wolf, you are an anomaly, you are powerful. But even wolves get trapped, they fall into holes and scrabble to get out but just tumble back." She looked to the Doctor. "And sometimes even the one who trapped them there can't pull them back out."

The air went deathly still, and moments passed with all eyes on River. Rose glanced at her Doctor; his expression was hard and defensive.

River broke the silence, slumping against her brother. "Simon, I'm tired," she said with a yawn. "When are we going home?"

The brother's expression was pained. "We can't go home, Mei-Mei, we don't have a home anymore."

River smiled sleepily.

"Then let's go find one."


End file.
